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Apparently Orthodox Jews are giving in to pragamatism, too

According to the New York Times, Rabbis Perry and Leah Berkowitz, a brother-and-sister pair who run “an unconventional congregation on the Upper East Side of Manhattan,” held nontraditional services on Rosh Hashana. The services contained a gospel choir and conga lines, and “touched on social and political themes including racism, anti-Semitism, Black Lives Matter, climate change, and homophobia.” The Wall Street Journaldescribes other synagogues where rabbis, “eager to woo younger people to High Holiday services, are holding programs in a beer garden, replacing deep reverential bows with goat yoga and celebrating the end of the season with glow sticks in a mosh pit.”

Of course, these are all attempts to fill the pews at non-Orthodox synagogues, or to draw unaffiliated young people to “non-traditional” services. In reality, they have little to do with Judaism at all; they’re warmed-over secular humanism, with some Yiddish fixings. They offer nothing of the history of the Jewish people, the eternal bond between mankind and God, the values implicit in the Torah that connect the Jews to their Creator. So while their curiosity factor may bring in some looky-loos, they’re bound to fail at attracting congregants over time.

Orthodox synagogues, in which participants take Jewish law seriously on a daily basis, keeping kosher and keeping the Sabbath, have no such problem. They are packed during the High Holy Days. They have no need for special outreach programs or other tricks to lure youngsters through the door. The walls of most of them aren’t thick enough to keep out the sound of playing children in the next room. The median age of the average Orthodox Jewish adult is 40, compared with the average age of 52 of other Jewish adults. Orthodox Jews are disproportionately married (69 percent) compared with non-Orthodox Jews (49 percent), and they average 4.1 children to 1.9 children for the non-Orthodox.

The division between conservative and liberal believers is not unique to Judaism. Liberal churches all over America seem to believe that ditching old-fashioned Biblical values in favor of feel-good trimmings will draw young people back to Sunday services or mass. Just talk some social justice, offer some free pizza, bring in a band, and young people will flock back to the pews. Except that isn’t happening. Mainline churches are losing members while Evangelical churches are gaining them. Fertility rates among more observant Christians are higher, and their children are more likely to stay Christian.

All of this makes sense. Religion makes certain claims about morality and mankind and God, three elements of the world that do not change over time. It suggests that values are not subjective but objective, not transient but permanent. The moment it degrades into a byword for mere secular morality with some ceremonial additions, it loses its raison d’être. If young people want social-justice preaching on a Sunday morning, they can simply head down to their local Starbucks and strike up a conversation with a barista. There’s no need to sit in an uncomfortable pew for three hours, only to be told that the key elements of religion are hackneyed.

Religious observance isn’t going to disappear, despite the ardent wishes of secularists, nor should it. It provides not just a feeling of communal and individual meaning, but the groundwork for Western civilization itself: a belief in morality, in the power of reason to suss out God’s intentions, in free will and in purpose. It is not a coincidence that as Europe has cast out religion, it has reaped a social and political whirlwind.

Scott Aniol is the founder and Executive Director of Religious Affections Ministries. He is Chair of the Worship Ministry Department at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he teaches courses in ministry, worship, hymnology, aesthetics, culture, and philosophy. He is the author of Worship in Song: A Biblical Approach to Music and Worship, Sound Worship: A Guide to Making Musical Choices in a Noisy World, and By the Waters of Babylon: Worship in a Post-Christian Culture, and speaks around the country in churches and conferences. He is an elder in his church in Fort Worth, TX where he resides with his wife and four children. Views posted here are his own and not necessarily those of his employer.